Follow FantasyPros911 Here
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Join a FantasyPros911 league and play against some of the best fantasy players around
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO
Other Articles You Might Like
10 Jan 2009 |
|
Tweet me!A reader asked my opinion on the following question: in an auction league do you keep Adam Dunn at $10, Vernon Wells at $7 or Adam Lind at $1. My recommendation was Adam Lind, and here is why.
 It is a fundamental tenet of auction leagues that when you have a championship caliber team, every keeper decision must be made in favor of having more money at the auction. One must certainly know when and if they have a championship caliber roster, of course, but assuming one's judgment is correct then the principle above simply must be followed without fail. We will permit deviation from this only with a damn good reason.Here the decision is a very simple one. Speaking in rough generalities, Dunn is a $15 player, give or take. Wells is a $20 player, and Lind is likely to be a $15 player. So this makes the question solely between Wells and Lind. If you disagree on these rough values feel free to leave a comment. One may argue that since the difference between Wells and Lind is about $5 and the dollar value difference in terms of salary is only $6 one should take the surer bet and go with Wells. This line of reasoning misses the crux of the matter. While that view is unassailably true in a vacuum, in the context of a keeper league auction it misses the fact that the saved money can be spent more efficiently at the auction. Let us assume for argument's sake that you are confident in your auction abilities and think that if you spend $220 in the auction you will get $250 in value. We will ignore inflation. Is this reasonable? I believe it is if you are a strong player; if anything the strong auction player can likely do better than this. But let's start with these values for simplicity. Now you save almost $7 with Lind. That is because one dollar at the auction is worth $1.14 in your hands. Now with Lind you get $15 in value plus $7 at the auction as compared to Wells' $20. This is based on my view of the values of these players. If you disagree with the values then the outcome of the decision will be different. Similarly if you think your skills are better than the $220/$250 ratio the outcome may be altered as well. The idea though is that in the hands of the skilled player a dollar saved is worth more than a dollar. John Benson wrote in the past of the 80% theory; that you should only spend 80% of a player's value to ensure that you turn a 20% profit. If you can do this then my $220/$250 ratio is too low. In any event no auction player can reasonably disagree with this premise in general. The other reason for my opinion is that I think there is a better than even chance that Lind outproduces Wells outright in 2009. If you hold this view then it is a no-brainer. But even if you disagree, with what probability do you think Lind can outproduce Wells? Even if it is only 25% you are probably better off with Lind. You can readily disagree with my numbers, but if you keep the idea behind the decision in mind your decisions will improve. Trackback(0)
Comments (4)
  written by RobReed, January 11, 2009
I think I agree with the premise, but not with this particular choice. We don't know for sure what kind of player that Lind is going to be, and I think a value of $15 is very optimistic, personally.
20 HR? Maybe. .280+ AVG? With a BABIP at .322 and a CT that has varied from 77%-81%, I can confidently predict a sub .270 AVG... His professional OBP numbers have been abysmal, so runs may be more limited than his limited ABs indicate. I can see hesitation with Wells, but I would go with a sure power bet of Adam Dunn for $10, believing that Adam Lind will likely be available in the endgame for under $5 (and probably $1 in a ten team league). Any higher, and it is pure speculation that I will let someone else gamble with.
written by BrianJoura, January 11, 2009
Wells has been all over the map in terms of value throughout his career. I know you have to assign him something but I think I would be a few dollars more conservative than $20. When he goes .300-30-100 he's comfortably above that mark, but he's only done that two times in the seven years he's been a regular.
Write comment
|
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed
It seems more likely to me that you could get a deal on a somewhat speculative pick like Lind than a bona fide power donkey like Dunn.
$7 for Wells is a decent deal as a keeper price, but there's no guaranteeing what he'll do, whereas Dunn can pretty much be penciled in for 40 HR.